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NEWARK, Ohio — The Licking Heights school district not only denies owing money to the Licking
County Educational Service Center, but has countersued for money the district said it has been
overcharged for years.

The Educational Service Center sued the district in January, claiming breach of contract. The
lawsuit claims Licking Heights submitted only partial payments for its services, which included
special-education and preschool services.

Licking County’s is one of 55 Educational Service Centers in the state, designed to provide
shared services, such as speech therapists, gifted-student coordinators and services for the
physically and emotionally challenged — services that many districts can’t afford to provide on
their own.

The state pays for most of the services provided by ESCs, though the contract between the
Licking County ESC and Licking Heights stated that any services beyond what the state covered were
to be paid for by the school district.

Licking Heights disputed the amounts of those overages and withheld payments of $156,924 for
2011 and $127,231 for 2012 while negotiating to reach a settlement. Licking Heights Superintendant
Philip Wagner said the Licking County ESC provided services to 10 different school districts that
often shared resources.

“While I certainly do appreciate what ESCs do, our responsibility is to the taxpayers of the
district,” Wagner said, “and making sure that the monies due to Licking Heights students actually
follow the student. We had some questions as to whether Licking Heights was getting the full
benefit of the unit as it was pooled.”

Dean Ramsey, vice president of the Licking County ESC governing board, said, “Before any
services were provided for any district in the county, we have a signed contract in place that says
they will agree with the amounts determined and billed for services from the ESC. …

Instead, the district requested itemized receipts of the overage billing statements dating back
to 2006 and, according to Friday’s countersuit, discovered “overcharges by LCESC for services that
were either never provided or incorrectly billed” for each fiscal year from 2006 to 2012, totaling
almost $292,000

Both the district and the ESC have faced state cuts and tight budgets in recent years, and say
the other is impeding further on their bottom lines.

“When we don’t have that money, we have to cut back on our services,” Ramsey said. “It’s really
caused problems for Licking County.”

Licking Heights now gets supplemental service from the Educational Service Center of Central
Ohio, which has offices in Columbus and Delaware.